Last week’s foray into German words for post-Christmas feelings made me go hunting for a book I had half-forgotten, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. “Its mission,” writes author John Koenig, “is to shine a light on the fundamental strangeness…
I took the ornaments off the tree and put them on the glass-top table in the sunroom. I felt ineffably sad doing so. The ornaments rested on the table for several days. I felt overwhelmingly lazy and sluggish about getting…
I’m starting the new year with this question in mind. Oliver Burkeman, in Meditations for Mortals, suggests it as an approach to just about everything. Hear him out! It’s genius. “Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.” -Attributed…
Mary Oliver shows me the way. Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does it End? There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea…
Here’s a terrific non-traditional holiday read for you or someone on your gift list: The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us, by John J. Lennon. I found it on the New York Times…
We don’t really know anyone else’s heart or mind. Or what they might be capable of. We know this – right? – if we’ve lived long enough. Ian McEwan’s new novel What We Can Know conveys this truth. The joy…
The language is not hard to understand – not difficult at all – the ground says I will catch you if you – when you – fall. The language is not hard to understand – not difficult at all –…
The poet Jane Hirshfield recently came to my attention. Imagine Mary Oliver with an edge, steel in her veins. I’m most of the way through Hirshfield’s new collection, The Asking, which draws from her work dating back to 1972 and…
His hand shook as he told the very short story of the angel who came to earth with a torch and pail. I wasn’t going to tell you this, he said, smiling, but I’ve decided to. This is what Richard…
Page 1 of 101
Next